Besides, if there was a way at all, this was the way that led to Olivia.
"I think you know I"d like you to care," he said and paused. To talk like this was dangerous. "But why do you want me to stop?" he resumed with an effort for calm.
"Are you very dull, Kit?" Olivia asked quietly.
Kit coloured and got up. After all, he was human and knew he could not hold out long. He thrilled and his hands shook as he turned his soft hat. Mrs. Austin trusted him, and since he could not see another plan, he must run away.
"If my luck is good and I get promotion, I won"t refuse another time.
Now, because your sister got me the post, I must stick to it and go on board."
Olivia gave him a cool, level glance. "Oh, well! I know your obstinacy; you baffled me before." Then her look got softer and she added: "But be cautious Kit! I don"t like Wolf."
She let him go and when he went down the steps he frowned. He had tried to take the proper line, but he was young and wondered whether his scruples were extravagant.
CHAPTER II
THE FIRST VOYAGE
To some extent, Kit"s first voyage on board _Mossamedes_ was disappointing, and he felt as if he had been cheated. Nothing romantic marked the run; the boat was large, her roll was slow and regular, and while her big engines pushed her north against the Trade-breeze, one could without much balancing walk the deck. On board _Campeador_ one could not. Her sharp plunges sent one staggering about, and one must dodge the spray that swept her like a hailstorm when the white surges burst against her forecastle. The spray and violent motion had some drawbacks, but Kit got a sense of man"s struggle with the sea.
On the whole, he thought the Morocco coast dreary. The towns were like the Spanish towns, dazzlingly white on the water-front, but meaner and dirtier. In fact, to walk about the narrow streets in the dark was rash, and Kit was satisfied by his first experiment. The hot, foul-smelling cafes by the harbour had no charm for him, and he lost himself in a network of alleys between straight walls. The alleys were very dark; sometimes an indistinct figure stole past, and sometimes he saw a yellow gleam in a high and narrow window. This was all, and it was a relief to get back to the beach and feel the fresh Trade-breeze.
As a rule, they moored _Mossamedes_ some distance from the beach, and she rode uneasily, rolling on the long swell while her cable jarred against the stem. Boats came off with her cargo of beans, barley and maize, and Kit, watching the dust-clouds roll along the parched coast, wondered where the produce grew. When he asked Yusuf, Wolf"s agent, the Jew vaguely indicated the hinterland. He was, he said, a merchant, and the merchants stopped in the towns. The Moors of the back country were strange people, and one left them alone. Notwithstanding this, Yusuf was obviously a good business man, for the quant.i.ty of grain he sent on board was large and when _Mossamedes_ weighed anchor, Kit thought Wolf would find her first voyage profitable.
Getting off was not easy. She had swung, and her cable, sweeping the bottom, had fouled the anchor. They hove all on board in a horrible tangle, and for hours the barefooted crew were occupied in dragging the ponderous links about. In the meantime _Mossamedes_ steamed slowly south, with a yellow smear on her port hand that stood for the coast.
The shallows run far to sea, and the charts are not remarkably good.
Yusuf had sent her to load sheep at the mouth of a wady, but stated that she might wait some days before the animals arrived.
Miguel, the old quartermaster, steered her in. He had long sailed on board a fishing schooner and knew the shoals, for where the African coast-shelf drops to the deep Atlantic, fish are numerous. Fish, lightly salted and dried in the sun, make the Spanish _baccalao_, and the _peons_, whose main food it is, are sometimes touched by leprosy. Miguel never wore boots and stockings, although when he went home on feast days he carried raw-hide sandals. Kit rather doubted if he put the sandals on. His clothes were strangely patched, and he could not read, but his manners were the manners of a Spanish grandee. He was something of a mystic and believed in miracles. He told Kit the Moors were cruel and treacherous, but his saint was king of angels, and he was not afraid.
The mate was a Catalan Freethinker, and believed in nothing he could not touch and see. Since he wore spectacles, his vision was limited.
When they reached the spot agreed upon, Miguel went to the bridge, and they rigged the deep-sea lead and stopped the ship. Miguel, posed like a Greek statue, stood on top of the pilot-house; his thin clothes wind-pressed against his body, and his white hair blown about his red cap. There were no sh.o.r.e marks, and Don Erminio"s reckoning was not always accurate. Across a belt of blue sea one saw a brown and yellow streak. Its outline was vague and broken; only the colour was distinct.
"The _Punta_!" said Miguel. "The _barranco_ is a league south. A bad place, captain, and the people are without shame."
Kit knew _barranco_ in Castilian and _wady_ in Arabic mean a stony hollow where water sometimes flows. He looked for an anchorage, but saw none. In places, the belt of blue was broken by patches of pale green, and farther on, by glistening white lines. These marked ridges on the coast-shelf and shallow spots where the long rollers broke. The wind was fresh but blew obliquely off the coast.
"How much water?" Don Erminio asked, and when Miguel answered, signed to a man on the forecastle.
"_Veremos._ We will see," he said.
The lead plunged, the line ran aft, and stopping swung upright at the p.o.o.p. Two men began to haul and one shouted the depth.
"Half a _brazo_ too much. It is very good," the captain remarked.
Then the screw began to throb and _Mossamedes_, going half-speed, forged ahead. Sometimes she crossed green belts and sometimes went round patches where the water was yellow and the swell curled as if the Atlantic waves ran up an inclined bottom. Kit thought Miguel did not hesitate; his lined face was imperturbable, and he directed the helmsman with a firm movement of his hand. Yet it was obvious they crept round banks where a ship like _Mossamedes_ would not float. When Miguel nodded and the captain rang his telegraph, all felt some relief.
"_Fondo!_" the captain shouted and the anchor leaped from the forecastle.
The splash was drowned by the roar of running cable that presently stopped with a jar. She brought up, swung to the wind, and there was a strange quietness on board.
"We are arrived," said Don Erminio. "If Miguel"s saint does not guard him until the sheep come, I do not think we will get to sea again. In the meantime, we will catch fish and make _baccalao_ for my senora."
In the morning they launched a boat and rowed to the coast. The point was low and stony, and farther along the hammered beach a shallow hollow ran down to the sand. In the background one saw a sandy waste dotted by thick-stalked euphorbia. One could land by jumping overboard into the surf while the others held off the boat, and Don Erminio shot a partridge and got some bait. Then they went back to the steamer, and for three days Kit and the captain fished.
Shoals surrounded the basin where _Mossamedes_ rode two miles from land.
From her deck it looked as if she were at sea, for the banks that sheltered her were only marked by lines of foam. Although she rolled, the motion was not violent, and Kit got a sense of s.p.a.ce and freedom. He liked the lonely anchorage better than a noisy port. In the morning they hoisted the boat"s lugsail, and following the edge of the sands, stopped where fish were numerous. A disturbed swell crossed the shoals, and spray blew about. Sometimes when the boat sank in the trough they could not see the ship, but the fresh breeze tempered the heat and drove along a thin haze that softened the light. Kit caught strange, deep-bodied fish with square heads, and was content.
One day, however, the breeze backed North and the boat could not leave the ship. It blew hard, and big, hollow-fronted seas rolled along the coast. In the distance, their ragged crests cut the sky, and the horizon was indented like the edge of a saw. In the foreground they crashed upon the shoals, and all about _Mossamedes_ one saw spouting foam. Brown dust-clouds tossed behind the yellow streak that marked the coast, and the sky was darkened as if by smoke. Macallister was ready to start his engines, but the lead-line that crossed the steamer"s rail ran straight down. Although she plunged, her anchor held.
Kit, sitting behind the deckhouse, smoked and mused. He saw that since he arrived at Las Palmas he had taken greedily all his new life offered; sports he could not enjoy before, the society of cultivated people, fresh excitements and emotional thrills. Now, however, a reaction had begun; he must pause and try to see where he was going.
To begin with, he thought he had not neglected his duties. It looked as if Don Ramon at the office approved him, and if they got the sheep on board, Wolf ought to be satisfied. _Mossamedes_ carried a paying cargo, and Kit had kept the cost of shipment low. He was making good, and now he had been given some responsibility, found he could, without much effort, carry his load. In a sense, however, this was not important; he really meant to think about Olivia. Olivia had carried him away and after a half-hearted struggle he had let himself go. She had beauty, pluck, and a cultivation higher than his. Sometimes she was gracious, and when they jarred he thought she found the jars amusing. She laughed at him afterwards and he did not mind. He would sooner she laughed than let him alone. He could not think about her without a disturbing thrill.
Yet the thing was ridiculous! Olivia was rich and extravagant, but he was poor; and not like Austin, who had married her sister. But suppose he somehow made his mark? If Don Arturo, for example, gave him a good post? Kit lighted a fresh cigarette and frowned, for he began to see his doubts would not be banished then. After all, he was not Olivia"s sort.
He understood half-consciously that for him her charm was mainly physical, and he had tried to resist. He had an inherited distrust for all that appealed to his senses. With Olivia he would get excitement, shocks and thrills. He would live at high tension, and she would take him far; but his vein was sober, and perhaps he would not want to go.
Yet he was flesh and blood, and her beauty called.
The others left him alone, and when a cloud of spray, sweeping over the deck-house, drove him aft, he looked for another quiet spot. The sea was getting worse, and spindrift blew across the turmoil like a fog.
_Mossamedes_ rolled until her scuppers dipped, and when she swung to the savage gusts the jar of her cable pierced the rumble of the sea. The water in her bilges splashed, and a ragged plume of smoke, blown flat from her funnel, indicated that Macallister kept keen watch. For all that, the anchor held, and Kit, sheltering behind the after wheel-house, thought about Betty.
Betty was his sort. She understood him, although he did not always understand her. She did not ask much and would not urge one far; Betty"s plan was to brighten the spot she occupied. Kit had doubted its wisdom, but he began to see it had some advantages. Yet if Betty did not urge, now he thought about it, he had felt her gently lead and had known her way was better than his. He did not see all she saw, but sometimes he was dull. Betty was calm and kind and did not think about herself. She had, however, refused him, and he had let her go. All the same, he was glad he could help her, and if his mother had used some tact----
The swinging stern lifted, and the iron deck throbbed. The foam was torn in a frothy patch; Kit saw the screw spin, and the throbbing stopped.
Macallister had turned his engines to satisfy himself they were ready to start. On the surface he was careless and irresponsible, but when the strain came one could trust old Mack.
On the whole, the break in his disturbing thoughts was a relief to Kit.
His philosophy was rude, and he did not understand that he was moved by two antagonistic forces. One was altogether of the flesh; the other was not. He did, however, see that his business on board _Mossamedes_ was with her cargo, and he began to speculate about the sheep. If the animals did not arrive soon, they ought not to stop. The anchorage was dangerous, and _Mossamedes_ was the company"s boat. He got up and went off to talk to Don Erminio.
In the night the wind veered to the north-east and got lighter, and soon after daybreak a streak of smoke blew along the beach. Juan, the mate, hove out a thirty-foot cargo launch, and Kit went down the rope with Miguel, the interpreter, and some sailors. A flock of sheep occupied the wady and five or six men, mounted on tall camels, moved the animals to the beach. The shepherds were big men, but their bodies and for the most part their dark faces, were covered by blue and white cloth. Kit"s job, however, was to count the flock and see all were got on board. He let the interpreter talk and helped Miguel.
They dropped an anchor and the boat rode in the shallow surf a few yards from the beach. When a large roller ran in they hauled her off and waited; and then, letting her drift back, jumped over and picked up as many sheep as possible before another roller broke. The work was exhausting and sometimes men and sheep washed about in the surf. When they pulled off, the boat held much water and now and then the sea-tops splashed on board. Alongside _Mossamedes_, the sheep were thrown into a tub, swung out by a derrick when for a few moments she stopped rolling.
The tub went up and came down empty, but after the most part of the flock was on board one plunged out through the gangway and the others followed. Don Erminio stormed, and Miguel with stolid patience steered the heavy launch in chase of the animals.
She went back and brought off a number of loads, but when the last was on board Kit"s muscles were sore, and his burned skin smarted with salt.
He had, however, got all the flock, and when he went below to bathe in fresh water the screw began to throb. Miguel climbed to the top of the pilot-house and _Mossamedes_ steamed out slowly between the shoals.
CHAPTER III
KIT"S SURPRISE